


The Clashings of Hope and Despair

by Pastango



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Bad references, M/M, a fanfiction that's totally not a fanfiction, another writing prompt for class, archive warning is there just because of the murders, but with more elaboration because i had to keep it pg n ye, jokingly makes a romantic subplot but fuck you it's saimota time, look like everyone dies, this is my longest fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-03-27 15:39:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13883904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pastango/pseuds/Pastango
Summary: Shuichi gets called in to investigate a murder.Everything does not go as planned.-----Happy early birthday, Ari!!!





	The Clashings of Hope and Despair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luucarii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luucarii/gifts).



> pastango posts things from her humanities class, part two
> 
> i'm so sorry if i fucked over the honorifics

Nobody has ever expected the unexpected. That’s why it’s unexpected, isn’t it? One of the generalized things that spur people to give their falsified condolences on social media is something in the category of ‘tragedy’. A murder, of course, is one of these various forms of tribulation. An absolutely horrific act, one that appals communities and cities across the entire world. 

 

Things, however, don’t change, and never have in the history of ‘basically forever’ despite public outcry for laws against the things causing these crimes.

 

Nothing changes unless the people act themselves. And often times, they never really do that.

 

But, of course, it never truly ends. Always rushing, always whirling. 

 

The constant calamity of all of these thoughts rushed about in a panic in the ace detective’s head, never letting him catch a break in any given moment for any amount of time, but always stopping for a few brief moments before they chose to strike again. This, of course, made him unnecessarily anxious about his abilities - despite being a prodigy beginning at the age of 13 after solving a seemingly impossible murder case. All of this was stressful, thus meaning he was almost perpetually falling into various pits of unbridled despair.

 

   “Hey, Saihara-kun?”

The words, as simple as they were, provided brief solace for his whirlwind of anxieties. The agency, so small it was almost unnoticed on the bustling streets that were always at any moment filled with exhausted nine-to-five workers scrambling and scampering to get to their mediocre jobs, was quiet besides the occasional rustle of papers

 

     “A new case came in today, a murder case,” his purple-haired assistant implored in an eager manner, “for a small town named Saishu.” 

 

Saihara-kun, Saihara-san. Whichever it was, chosen by the speaker. He mused a few words of tired encouragement, mostly to himself, as his coworker handed him the file. His assistant, Kaito Momota, a man with his hair coloured a bright purple and put into spikes that could give you cuts if you were to even touch them, was aspiring to be an astronaut after his internship was over. A former classmate from their early days, he was excitable and motivational, always ready to give advice or support to the anxiety-ridden teenager, even when everything seemed so absolutely, utterly pointless and stress-inducing.

 

   “Kirumi Tojo, an acclaimed maid… only 19. Murdered in the house of one of her customers… the customer was the first to see the body and call the police.” Shuichi mused, staring at the file with a strange sense of urgency.

 

   “There was almost no evidence.” Kaito added. “No external wounds, but according to the person who found her, she looked horrified, even as a corpse. Her skin was flushed, and there were scratch marks on her neck. With all that, she was stabbed twelve times even after she was dead! Talk about overkill...”

 

The light from outside began to shine through the windows. Early morning dawned, and the street outside the modest detective agency cleared as quickly as kittens met with a vacuum cleaner that turned on at an inconvenient time for their mother and their suppertime. Shuichi sighed numbly, reminiscing on the easier days of simple cases with large amounts of evidence. This case would be difficult, but not entirely unsolvable. He was an ace detective, after all, it was his personal idea of being a prodigy and his sole profession at age twenty.

 

He’d need the postmortem investigations. It wouldn’t be as easy as just finding a culprit, seeing as there was no definite cause of death- with possibilities ranging between asphyxiation and even the off chance of it being a poisoning- along with the family information and really anything at this point-

 

The thoughts began to overwhelm him again, and he pressed his face onto the wooden desk. Close to tears from the stress, he began listing features about the desk. It was a grounding technique, simple as that. Beechwood, which was sanded down and stained with some form of cheap off-brand burnt sienna colour. It was harsh on the eyes, but the desk itself was littered with papers and folders. There was a set of pastel highlighters, pink, blue, and purple. Much easier on the eyes, might one add, compared to the garish desk.  _ The colour must’ve been added recently, _ he mouthed silently after inhaling, closing his eyes that reflected the tone of gold in the morning sunlight,  _ the smell is attacking my sinuses.  _

 

His cheek squished against the cool wood, unforgiving and stiff but chilled to a refreshing temperature, eyes closed. One could attribute this pose to one of rest, or some form of relaxation, but he was simply thinking. Mulling over stresses, as one does. As per usual, of course...

 

It took a moment, but the ace detective raised his head to make eye contact with his assistant and friend, before almost yelling his response directly in his face.

 

   “Okay!”

 

His assistant seemed startled by the sudden noise, stumbling over his initial sentence to the point where it was incomprehensible for a few seconds, before shaking his head and beaming at the detective. “Good spirit! I’ll stay here to keep checking the news so you can stay up-to-date on anything! Just remember what I always say!”

 

The detective chuckles wholeheartedly as the intern continues. “The impossible is always gonna be possible! All you gotta do is make it so! Believe in yourself, man! You can solve this case!”

 

With that bold statement, Shuichi Saihara leaves the agency as the lunch rush begins. Cars and even more workers meander down the sidewalks in an enervated manner, going to get their cheap lunches from the various cafes and stores along the stretch of road. The sounds were soothing, in a way, permitting at least some sort of gentle distraction from the anxieties of a new case.

 

He continued his quick strides until he got to the staff parking lot. The car was one of the only vehicles in the parking lot, a simple deep blue colour that faintly reflected the light from the sun. It was likely one from before the 21st century, he prided in it being a gift from his uncle when he turned sixteen almost four years ago. 

 

After taking out his key and completely missing the ‘Unlock’ button as if it was some form of invisible force that commanded his hand to move as far away from said button as possible. the key almost fell from his grip as the car’s alarm rang out across the sunbaked asphalt encased in brick walls. He scrambled for the button, and as the deafening sound faded off with the final echoes rebounding off the thick walls, he got into the navy blue car and began the overly long drive to the excessively small town.

 

The drive would take four hours. Saishu was a tiny town, so tiny that the small dot beside it’s name on a map looked like a speck of dust that could be blown away with a slight breeze. The entire town, in fact, was small enough that a single gust of wind could wipe it off the map. There was only fourteen residents, note the word  _ was _ , seeing as one of the residents was recently murdered- thus making the population thirteen, all under the age of thirty, and some even just teenagers. Despite the ‘this town is basically invisible and has no place on any official map’ status, the town of Saishu was a tourist destination. It wasn’t for anything relating to sights, the town was quite a bore to even view, and even more so to stay and actually see anything that might be in the town. No, Saishu itself was known for the talent.

 

It had it all. Among the residents, there was an acclaimed artist named Angie Yonaga, who had designed works for anything from a simple internet commission to painting the president of the United States, an adventurer who while travelling the world had survived even the harshest of conditions, and the wife of the adventurer was a famous pianist who had never missed a note in any of her performances, even those for kings of foreign European countries and the like.

 

The recent death had been that of a maid, who was well known for her services. Kirumi Tojo, a 19 year old who was used to the constant rumours of her status. Some say she was the prime minister of Japan. Others say she uses bribes to trick her clients into giving good reviews. Some of these were mere accusations.

 

Shuichi speculated that she had been killed by means of poison, and from the meager evidence that was provided in the case file he could assume that it was cyanide poisoning. He’d need to be careful if his assumption was proven correct, seeing as cyanide gas is still just as toxic as the powder itself, and with one simple mistake he’d be dead.

 

Now wasn’t the time for that, he speculated. The small town was nearby. Trees on the side of the road faded into sprawling plains, nothingness sprawling for miles on end before finally fading into blurry mirages of crops and trees. It wasn’t that warm out, but objects in the distance still appeared hazy.

 

The arrival to the town felt like it didn’t take any time whatsoever. And, in a way, it didn’t, with the road slowly losing it’s paving and becoming a rough gravel. Potholes littered the ground, which nearly gave him whiplash when he accidentally hit one.

 

After the four hours had passed, he arrived in the small area. It could be referred to as a village, knowing the population of what was once fourteen, but swiftly fell to. The investigation would need to begin immediately.

 

Alibis, he’d need alibis. Those, as one would expect, are necessary for any murder case, assuming you actually want to  _ solve _ the entire thing.

 

A woman with hair the colour of soft golden silk approached him, holding something in her hands. It was coated in blood, the sticky crimson still slightly damp and staining the skin a similar shade of sickening red. She seemed to be absolutely, positively disgusted by it.

 

“Sir? My name is… everyone calls me Akamatsu-san. That should do for now. This… was found in my house, they’re all assuming it was the murder weapon, and they’re thinking that I’m the culprit. That, or my husband. The body is in my house, too.”

She fidgeted with the knife. He noted the fact that the blood continued to drip onto her pale skin as she continued.

 

“You should really come with me, right?” 

 

Shuichi angled his head in such a way that it could be interpreted as a nod, and trailed after her across the street. 

 

Fifteen minutes passed, full of uninterrupted investigation. He had almost had a nervous breakdown twice. Shutting his thoughts up, he decided to stop worrying. Stepping back into the room, he dusted off his hands and continued looking over the body. It was morbid how one could be pushed to do this, but why? Why kill? For money? Revenge? It all made no sense, no sense at all, and it was worrying. So worrying, in fact, that he was willing to give up right then and there, but the presence of the woman beside him was somehow willing him to continue trying to find the truth of the case.

 

The woman, as odd as she seemed, had invited him to stay for tea afterwards. This is the site of a murder, is it really safe? None of it made any sense, as per usual. He decided to strike up a conversation with her, attempting to be polite.

“I didn’t expect you to be so hospitable.”

 

“It’s only fair, considering as you’re investigating an entire murder.”

 

He sighed, and leaned on the arm of the couch they sat on. It was soft, overstuffed and a light brown. Sure, it was tough, but he’d make it. He looked ready to fall asleep at that very moment, before the woman beside him shook his arm a little too roughly.

 

“You seem stressed.”  
  
“I do?”

 

“It’s not very surprising. Nor is it subtle.”

 

“I happen to be a detective, not a spy.”

 

Softly, she chuckled as he implored, “Are you the pianist here?”

 

Excitedly, she nodded. Her hair, framing her face like an angel, bounced up and down as she stood up from her position beside him. “Do you want to hear me play?”

 

The piano was large and a pristine white, all except for one corner where it was horrifically splattered with blood. The colour was already beginning to fade into a dull brownish-red that would leave a stain, a permanent reminder of the atrocities of the two murders. This had been where the murder had occurred, it seemed, but there was some form of soothing atmosphere despite the grimness of it all. A murder, a sin, a  _ killing  _ had happened here, thankfully being the only one, so why was he so calm?

 

“Do you like raspberries?”

 

“Ah, erm… yes, I do.”

 

“Okay! I’ll go and get some, and some drinks, then you can listen to me play!”

 

She left the room, abandoning him. He sat in silence, running his fingers along the cool wood of the piano beside him. Once again, he was on edge. A murder could happen at any time, and he’s sitting there when he could be out investigating-

 

A sharp, high pitched scream, a borderline wail at that, tore him from his stress-induced worries. He stands up on instinct, the sound beginning to reverberate in a perfect vibrato as he sprints through the house. It’s confusing, but he makes it to the source- the backyard.

 

The pianist was kneeling next to a shot put ball. In her arms was a man with a tangled mop of greenish hair, the colour of a ripe avocado, stained with a deep crimson, which in turn  her hands the colour of the raspberries on the bush beside them. His breath caught in his throat, and he was numbly aware that he wasn’t breathing as her sobs form into words, screams of pain and absolute horror.

 

“My husband! My husband was murdered!”

 

Those words, torn to shreds by the gasping wails of the widowed pianist, were the turning point. Her husband, the famous adventurer Rantaro Amami, was murdered in cold blood.

 

After finally taking a breath when the feeling of being crushed had passed, the ace detective ran across the yard to her side. This was the point where he decided enough was enough, these atrocities would be stopped even if it meant risking his life for the greater good.

 

It was for the sake of this town.

 

The investigation, just like the last one, had gone by almost too quickly. It didn’t even feel like it took thirty minutes, and yet, it took about two hours. The woman beside him couldn’t bear to be in close proximity to the body, much less help investigate, so he asked her to stay inside the house.

 

He refused to speak to any news reporters. Two murders had happened, so many of the most popular news crews had flocked to the town to try to question everyone. With the meager amount of evidence he had, from the original murder weapon- a knife- to trace samples of fingerprints, he had almost nothing to go off of. He was no closer to the discovery of the culprit.

 

He began walking down the street, away from the house of the pianist, to clear his thoughts. Maybe he should just leave, maybe it’s not worth it to remotely investigate. Surely they’d find the culprit on their own, right? Maybe it’d all be okay… 

But no, he couldn’t. If he didn’t help, there was a chance the rest of the town would be murdered along with the two victims. A high chance, so high that it could dwarf even the highest buildings. It wasn’t worth it.

 

Shuichi stayed in the town. He continued walking down the street in silence, long after any sort of news reporters had left the town after being unable to find the culprit. Unable to shake the feeling of being watched, he continued until he heard another cry from a nearby house. The sun was lowering in the sky, beginning to ebb towards the horizon at a slow yet steady rate. He thought of the one nursery rhyme of a turtle and a rabbit, before he made his way across the house.

  
  


He had expected a similar event as the one with Akamatsu’s husband. This, as essentially everyone else had expected, was most certainly not that. A woman sat inside, kneeling on the floor, clutching something in her arms. Her back was turned, so he was forced to go around and see the supposed carnage.

 

The woman, now recognizable as the inventor Miu Iruma, was clutching a Roomba.

 

The roomba had a large knife through it, and was clearly nonfunctional, and yet she was sobbing over it. 

 

“Ma’am?”   
  


“My baby! Dead! Killed by some pleiban!”

 

“M-Ma’am, isn’t that… a roomba?”

 

“HE WAS A GOOD ROOMBA!”

So good, it seemed, that the robotic vacuum even had a small golden nameplate inscribed with the name ‘Kiibo’. What is that supposed to mean?

 

Saihara flinched, and chose to back out of the house before the situation got worse. He noted the knife was very similar to the original kitchen knife, beginning to walk back down the sidewalk before it hit him.

 

_ Were the murders connected? _

 

After this heavy revelation under the waning sunlight, he sprinted back into the household. In hindsight, he regretted this immensely, as he was forced to witness the formerly mentioned woman’s murder.

 

The only sound was a choked yell as she was stabbed. He debated on running away as he gagged, watching her slowly give up on being alive. But, there was one thing there. The culprit!

 

The one who had stabbed her now stood above her, having been unaware of the detective’s presence. Their white clothing, which looked tattered and vaguely similar to a straightjacket that had the sleeves untied was splattered with the horrific sight of blood in various stages of drying, and their bob of plum coloured hair was completely unmistakable. 

 

“You! It was you!”

 

Preparing for the worst, he had already accepted that it may be his assistant. It was probable, but definitely not likely, that Kaito would even attempt to kill someone, but that didn’t matter. Not now. Emotions have no place in a crime investigation.  He had finally uncovered the truth of the entire ordeal. 

 

The culprit turns around, and in the brief seconds of pure relief, he realizes who it truly is. 

 

“Oh, heeey! Didn’t we go to school together, Saihara-chaan~?” The teenager held up his hands in an innocent manner, which would normally be affected if the aforementioned was not holding a knife.

 

“...Ouma-kun.” He replied, flatly.

 

“That’s my name! Kokichi Ouma! Don’t wear it out, Sushi!”

 

Shuichi, surprised by the reveal, stutters. “W-What are you doing?”

 

“Oh, you know. Killing and stuff. Looks like you caught me, ace detective.”

 

“Are you just… giving yourself up?” He inquired. “Why?”

 

“Murder got so boring. If you kill so much, then you give up. Seems like my plan to exploit your weakness worked!”

 

“My… weakness?” 

 

The fiend cackled as Shuichi glared at him, the lowering sun beginning to creep through the windows. 

 

“You’re always stressing, ‘course I had to use that to my advantage!”

 

“Kokichi Ouma, you’re under arrest on three counts of first degree murder.”

  
“What about the roomba?” He kicked the cleaning device for emphasis.

 

“Sure, whatever. Four counts.”

 

All this work had led up to the final point in his investigation. 

 

For once, they were safe.

  
  


The waning sun didn’t stop him from heading back to the detective agency. It would be long closed, but he suspected that his assistant was still there. He managed to get there before total nightfall, stepping into the familiar space and heaving a sigh. Within moments, he was grabbed by his assistant and pulled into an embrace. In that brief period of time, the exhaustion had hit him, and Shuichi was already beginning to doze off while they simply held each other.

 

“I thought you were killed! All the news… all the news reporters said there were another two murders, but gave us nothin’ on the victims! I-I-I assumed the worst for you, and thought you had died!”

 

The ace detective responded with a tired sound, something akin to a whimper, before responding and sounding out of breath. “I’m staying at your house tonight. I’m not fit to go home.”

 

“...will do, bro.”

**Author's Note:**

> congrats if you made it this far i'm not sorry for any damage i caused
> 
> i got a perfect score (basically an A+) on this i hope you enjoyed it as much as my teacher


End file.
